The strange return of Obowma

Pam Iorio, the mayor of Tampa, Florida, to whom Obama is extravagantly bowing in this photo, is a Caucasian woman. Not only is she not nonwhite, not only is she not a non-Westerner, but she is an Italian-American, and thus, from the elite liberal perspective, a member of the least PC white ethnic group there is.

So why the bow?

I’m not the only one wondering. The New York Daily News quotes a blogger at Red State:

The mayor of Tampa isn’t a Third World potentate, totalitarian dictator, or terrorist leader so I can’t understand why Obama would be in full-bow mode. Is bowing now the standard way the President greets people these days?

I’ve got it. Obama, as a result of his recent humiliating defeats, is going through a HAL-like breakdown, in which his various sub-programs, including his bowing sub-program, start playing spontaneously on their own, regardless of external circumstances.

But that’s not quite correct. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the computer HAL’s programs begin playing on their own when his memory modules are in the process of being removed by Dave, the spaceship’s captain. Prior to that scene, HAL, preemptively defending himself from precisely that fate, engages in behaviors far worse than reciting nursery rhymes—or bowing—at inappropriate moments. Let’s hope our fallen narcissist-in-chief, on realizing that he is at risk of a similarly decisive loss of power and importance, doesn’t exhibit a similar reaction.

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Irv P. writes:

When I read the phrase “HAL-like breakdown” I laughed so hard I couldn’t read the rest of the passage for about 30 seconds. Don’t under rate your sense of humor. I know blogging can be a jungle, but keep us smiling.

Mark Jaws writes:

Hey! Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You claimed that Italian-Americans are the least PC white ethnic group there is. I beg to differ. Pierogi-munching, accordion-playing Polish Americans, America’s most conservative group, are indeed the most non PC group in America. [LA replies: I think I said what elite liberals perceive as the most non-PC group. Polish-Americans are not as prominent in the national consciousness as Italian-Americans are. For example, there are many prominent Italian-American entertainers; how many prominent Polish-American entertainers are there who are known as Polish-Americans?]

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 01, 2010 11:41 PM | Send